Vanity Fair and Art Basel Paris Celebrate an Official Opening Party

A lot of restaurants in Paris have some serious history. Just take the stately building in the woods that houses Laurent, a haute spot in the Tuileries Garden. Originally King Louis XIV’s hunting lodge, taken over as a guinguette during the French Revolution, refurbished by King Louis Philippe during the Bourbon Restoration as he constructed the Champs-Élysées—Laurent is one of the most atmospheric spots to grab a meal in town, the shrubbery hiding you away from the legions of tourists marching toward the Arc de Triomphe.

And in line with this illustrious history, on Tuesday Vanity Fair and Art Basel Paris partnered to take over the entirety of Laurent’s stately anterooms, ballroom, and courtyard in celebration of the official opening party for the fair’s first edition at the Grand Palais. Look, obviously we’re a bit biased here, but I can objectively say that, having been to dozens (maybe hundreds) of art fairs over the years—they don’t usually have opening-night cocktail parties like this. There was Champagne, like endless trays of Champagne, and foie gras so good one cursed that this stuff is banned in certain coastal states. There was a lot of caviar, courtesy Volzhenka. I’m not too good with the metric system, but after some googling, all those tins amounted to several pounds of caviar, which I think is the correct amount. People were smoking real cigarettes, early and often.

A bit of context: It’s technically the first year of Art Basel Paris. In the previous two years it had been known as Paris+ par Art Basel, and operated in a temporary space near the Eiffel Tower. But now that it’s moved into the newly renovated Grand Palais, with its roughly $500 million facelift, it joins the ranks of the great places to buy contemporary art on planet earth.

On the eve of the fair, many of the dealers with million-dollar paintings to sell the next day swung by Laurent for some bubbly before, after, or—in the case of several plans-scrambling guests—in lieu of their scheduled dinners. On the early side, Regen Projects founder Shaun Caley Regen swung through with power agent Beth Swofford, one of the foremost of the movie business collectors in Los Angeles. Anton Kern squeezed through the entrance, flute in hand, and Karma founder Brendan Dugan came by en route to the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris gala. Victoria Siddall, the newly named director of the National Portrait Gallery in London, arrived with Guggenheim curator Katherine Brinson. Artist Carsten Höller has been hosting a Paris pop-up version of his Stockholm restaurant, Brutalisten, (he also has a sculpture on view at the Place Vendôme, near the Ritz Paris) but managed to stop by on the early side, as did artist Claudia Comte.

Several artists had come from the Fondation Louis Vuitton, where LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault had invited a select few to view the new Tom Wesselmann retrospective that also incorporates works by contemporary artists in dialogue with the late Pop master. Lauren Halsey, fresh off the big show at The Serpentine in London, went straight to the Frank Gehry–designed museum from Gare du Nord to see her work installed in the show, then came right to Laurent for the Basel x VF event.

“Did you see the Wesselmann cutouts on the top floor? Crazy stuff,” she said.

Gagosian’s Antwaun Sargent had been at the museum earlier, and chatted with Vanity Fair editor in chief Radhika Jones about artist Derrick Adams’s suite of works responding to Wesselmann. In a nod to Pop art absurdism, Sargent noted that while he appeared to be wearing jeans, he wasn’t. They were actually Bottega Veneta designer Matthieu Blazy’s trompe-l’oeil “denim” that turns out to be leather upon the touch.

James Murdoch, whose Lupa Systems owns a considerable stake in the whole global Art Basel enterprise, arrived with his wife, Kathryn, and was spotted deep in conversation with former director Marc Spiegler in a secret velvet-lined jewel box bar. Right, there was a secret bar—accessible through a fake door that looked like a bookcase, just as in the movies. Fellow ex-Basel head honcho Sam Keller was there, along with a battalion of current staffers: Art Basel CEO Noah Horowitz, Art Basel Paris director Clément Delépine, and Art Basel fairs director Vincenzo de Bellis. In the frenzy outside, amid a sea of glam locals puffing on slim cigarettes, I spotted dealers Steve Henry, Nicole Russo, Ellie Rines, and Bridget Donahue with artist Martine Syms, who has a big show now open at Lafayette Anticipations.

At one point I ran into Bridget Finn, who is set to open her first Art Basel Miami Beach as director in just a few short months—just weeks away, really. Looking around at the party going full tilt, she couldn’t help but think beyond the fair in Paris.

“What if we…did this in Miami?” Finn said.